Inquirer: Youth party list group to end campaign in cyberspace
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/infotech/view_article.php?article_id=65336
By Erwin Oliva
INQUIRER.net
Last updated 10:38am (Mla time) 05/11/2007
MANILA, Philippines — The Kabataan (Youth) party list group has started holding its Miting de Avance in cyberspace with a little help from prominent Filipino bloggers.
With barely a day before the last day of campaigning, the Kabataan party list organized a “viral marketing” campaign that led by Filipino bloggers who are connected to a larger network of Filipino bloggers, first nominee Raymond Palatino told INQUIRER.net.
This final push, dubbed “Kabataan Cyber-Fever,” hopes to encourage more “educated voters” to vote for the party list group.
Among the local bloggers tapped are Shari Cruz (misteryosa.com), who bagged the Best Personal Blog Award in this year’s Philippine Blog Awards; Victor Villanueva (bikoy.net), who is also a finalist in the same category; Jay Rocas from the De La Salle University in Dasmarinas (Four-eyed Journal), and; Vencer Crisostomo (Student Strike) and Sarah Katrina Maramag (Adarna’s Attic) of the Young Radicals blog.
The group said that prominent political blogger and analyst Manuel L. Quezon III has also endorsed the party list group in his blog (www.quezon.ph).
A blogger himself, Palatino said this effort is consistent with their campaign strategy that was launched in cyberspace through popular video hosting service YouTube. The campaign involved a short video clip featuring popular youth artists and personalities.
Palatino maintains his own blog (mongser’s nest) and is Global Voices Online’s Filipino correspondent.
Meanwhile, the group disclosed that Filipino-American youth organizations and cause-oriented groups supportive of the party list group have organized a campaign using text messaging.
Dubbed TEXT B.A.C.K. Internet Blast, the effort involves supporters sending a blast of text messages to friends and relatives to encourage them to vote for the youth party list group.
Kabataan said this initiative is led by the US Chapter of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, or BAYAN USA, called TEXT BACK (TEXT Brigade Against Cheating and Killings).
Last Sunday, May 6, starting 7:30 p.m. Pacific Time and 10:30 p.m. Eastern Time in the United States, the group sent “nationally coordinated text messages” from subscribers in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Honolulu and other US cities to various Philippine cities including Manila, Baguio, Davao and Cebu City.
Text messages were written in English and different dialects incuding Tagalog, Visayan, Ilocano.
The messages include catch-phrases that focus on battling cheating and opposing political killings.
“It is estimated that one Filipino in the US supports 4-5 Filipinos in the Philippines. Fil-Ams are the largest overseas community outside of the Philippines, with almost 4 million Filipinos. With those
calculations we anticipate TEXT BACK USA spreading like wildfire reaching thousands, maybe more, of our countrymen this final week of before elections,” stated Sarah Katrina Maramag, Media Officer of Kabataan Party List in Manila and of the international Filipino youth organization known as Anakbayan.
Meanwhile, he said that the party list group was endorsed Thursday by consumer and mobile rights advocacy group TXTPower.